


Wild Things.

by fearless_seas



Series: Emerson's Steps to Making a Home. [1]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: First Kiss, First Meetings, First Time, M/M, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-19 06:39:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15504513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearless_seas/pseuds/fearless_seas
Summary: First, you find something lost.





	Wild Things.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy :) Portuguese is not one of my languages, so correct me if anything is wrong!

**i. rato**

___________________________

 

          You are bent in the Brazilian heat with your sleeves rolled up to elbows when your older brother, Wilson, passes a hand over your shoulder. It jolts you out of your reverie and you pull your hands out from beneath the kart you’re working on.

          “ _O que você quer?_ ”, you shield your eyes from the sun and turn a hand over to peer for a moment at the oil and grease caking you nails. The hand leaves you and vaguely you see a shadowy figure standing above you. Wilson tells you to stand, reluctantly you do, wiping the sweat off your forehead with the back of your hand.

          “ _Rato, este é Carlos_.”

          It’s the first time you ever see him. You’re eleven and your eyes flicker over him like he’s some type of precious art. The stranger cannot be more than a year older than you, but you’ll be surprised to learn one day that he is actually two years your senior. They wear kindness in their face as if they were born with a smile. Short stature, fringed chestnut hair and deep, dusky skin like caramel. Soft, cinnamon eyes that have a certain innocence or naivety in them; a tricky glare of mischeif and perhaps it is only the lighting. You didn’t know that is was possible to wear the sunlight. Carlos has his hands behind his back and you blink a little longer before pushing your hand out with a wide grin as if you've been acquainted for a long while.

          “ _Prazer em conhecê-lo_ , Carlos,” and they give you a grin back, one that makes you feel suddenly warmer inside. It shows his teeth, presses the boundaries of his face delicately without a hint of superficiality. But you are a little taken back because he doesn’t respond to you even though he grabs for your hand.

          “ _Ele sabe Italiano_ , _só um pouco de português_ ,” Wilson explains and you nod your head. He doesn’t know Portuguese well but speaks Italian and English. It fills you with something that you cannot understand, that you and you alone are of few who can hear him. Apparently, he is called _Moco_ at home and the first thing Wilson does is flick his new friend in the arm and tease him of this.

          “ _Moco?_ ”, you laugh and Carlos narrows his brows as if he doesn’t understand the meaning of all this.

          Wilson grabs him by his upper arm, “Do not worry, _Moco_.” He begins to wheel him away, leaving you to your work. You would’ve much preferred the company in all honesty. He felt sweet, a delicate soul and a vulnerable smile. You stand there for a moment, watching him part, following him out of the corner of your eye as he looks back to you. Their voice in the distance mingled with your thoughts, settled itself and erased all the troubles of the world.

          Carlos begins coming around the house more often. It is subtle, that first year in which he slowly slipped into your life. It felt like waking up with the sun in your eyes. Wilson and you are almost never apart, _Mamae_ jokes that the both of you are joined at the hip. Where the both of you are, Carlos is as well. One afternoon, a few days after your twelfth birthday, Carlos strides up to you in the shade carrying a box of shiny, metal parts. He drops it into the dirt beside you as he approaches.

          “ _Tigrao_ has more parts for you,” he settles in beside you.

          You stick out your tongue and scrape the box closer to you, peering inside of it. The heat is burning against your bare back. Carlos wears a shirt because he tends to burn easily. He has a fragility about him, an honest but an easy quality. His hand brushes yours on the rim the box, it sends a little spark up your spine that turns into a shudder.

          He leans closer to you and you can sense his slow breaths on your shoulder. “Are your parents around?”, Carlos questions, gaping over his shoulder towards the windows.

          You shake your head, reach into the box and shuffle the pieces around. “No, they are shopping,” you find the piece you’re looking for and pick it up with a satisfied hum.

          Carlos grins sweetly, “Good.” He reaches under his shirt and an amber bottle slicked with his sweat is set in between you. “He gave me that too,” he sticks the screw driver beneath the cap and pops open the beer. He cringes as he steals the first taste, perhaps because it is warm, before handing it over to you.

          “My parents will kill me, I am only twelve, I am not ready to die,” you roll your eyes but snatch it up without hesitation. You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand when you are done. You look over as Carlos touches the rim of it to his mouth and you suddenly have a thought: _I wish it were my lips_. Quickly, you pivot your gaze away, begin to work on the karts again because you cannot wander around in thoughts like breathing the sweetest air and being breathless. But you feel their eyes as they trail over your skin while you work. And you? You pretend not to notice; just the satisfaction of them noticing you is enough to last a lifetime.

          When spring breaks, the neighborhood boys like to sneak into the ravine less than a mile into the woods. Carlos has never been there but he strips and follows you, Wilson and Luiz into the water that day. The trees cast shadows on your backs and you are grateful to be relinquished from the humid weather. After an hour you crawl out and posture on the bank, shaking the water from your eyes, casting a gaze back towards your friends. It’s only Carlos that catches your eye, he is laughing and the stream has greased his hair back. He notices you then, pauses and his smile falters slightly as if he is stuck in something. The water brings out his eyes, glows and shines against his cheeks and you know you couldn’t wish to be anywhere else but here in that moment. It’s one word that scares you, rattles you to your core when it pastes itself into your brain:

 _Beautiful_.

          You didn’t require words because you looked at other and smiled as if you’d just seen the greatest thing in the entire world. Maybe, it is because, in your eyes, you truly had. After a minute, and you have averted your eyes now, he climbs towards you and sits beside you. His skin is soaking wet, and water droplets drip across his chin, his neck and his chest. Your legs are touching, met at the hip and he smells just as rain does. He leans back, bends his elbows and for a brief second his fingers brush your hip. The ever so slight touch breathes life through you and you suddenly feel extremely awake.

          Your brother notices you both then, he gestures to you. “ _Rato! Venha ca!_ ” he calls and you shake your head with a simple hand wave. Wilson shrugs and returns to attempting to drown Luiz. Carlos smiles out of the corner of his eye and it is strange, you think, that you are thirteen and if you died now you would have felt fulfilled nonetheless. If was the feeling that told you that this was it, and you’ve felt a great many things in your life but none so greater than this. It wasn’t just something that you could let go of.

          “Emerson,” he discloses and hearing your name on his tongue makes you turn your head to him. “I like it a lot,” he smirks and you raise a brow.

          “What do you like?”, you question and something in your stomach flips.

          “Your name,” is all he says in return.

          You gaze falls, “You’ve known me for two years and that’s what you tell me?” You scoff and lean on your elbows behind your back.

          “You should use it more,” and your shoulders knock together.

          “My name?”, you sound confused.

          You glances to you with a vivid sense of understanding in his heart, “You have too many nicknames.” He’s always called you Emerson. For some odd reason, today was the first day, as you peel your eyes over the water and your fingers inch together without looking, that you realize this. As if your name belongs to him and you begin to love the sound of yourself as is rises in his throat.

          You’re fourteen the first time that you sneak out of the house at night. You are plenty used to it, covering for Wilson as he goes out to visit his girlfriends and how the open window sends cold night air to fill the room. It’s the night before your first motorcycle race and you cannot sleep because of the awful sensation in your stomach. You open the window after the second stone hits your window and Carlos is standing there on the lawn, peering up to you.

          “What are you doing here?”, you lean out of the window and the breeze hits you tenderly, flows over your bare neck. He kicks at a pebble with the toe of his shoe, his hands are in his pockets as he looks up to you. “You realize I race tomorrow? I have to sleep,” you chuckle.

          He shrugs his shoulders, “I am lonely. I knew you wouldn’t be sleeping.”

          It’s all you needed to hear and you put your shoes on, the ones that have holes in the soles, before hopping from the tree into the grass. He grabs your arm to steady you and takes you to the roof of an abandoned building. You rip your jeans and rust is turning your hands to copper. The both of you sit on the edge, dangling your feet downwards and your eyes trail to the view below. One strong gust of wind… you shove this thought of your head. You love how soft the air feels with him beside you and the fabric of your sweaters stick together. It’s small moments like this when everything is infinite with the curl of his lips and you laugh so hard over nothing at all. He reclines his head on your shoulder, loops his arm in yours. You move over and your nose buries into his hair for a second. He wore the scent of your future and his skin, the moonlight and springs to come. Stars glisten above, and Carlos is the type to believe on wishing upon shooting stars. You close your eyes to indulge him and just whisper this:

 _Please, don’t let anything change_.

          Wilson inquires why there is red dust all over the floor of your room and _Mamae_ gets upset with you because it stains a part of your sheets. The third time he brings you up there is when you grow impatient. You grab the collar of his shirt, coiling it up in your fingers and right when he is facing you, and you are determined to kiss him, you become embarrassed and stop. You continue holding his shirt like that and staring into his eyes, studying his every move for a flinch of disappointment. He only smiles sweetly, like he always does, and says to you:

          “What are you waiting for?”

 _Nothing, absolutely nothing_. So, you kiss him. It is messy that first time, all teeth and nothing else. But neither of you could care because you’ve been waiting too long for this. His eyes are shut, he reaches up and removes your fist from his shirt, moves it to his hips. You grab him, tug him closer to you as if he and only he can save you from something. You pray that he cannot taste your desperation. You’re touching his skin and you can ambience it, the flutter of his rapid heartbeat in his veins that pulsates to his lips. It is then, under the stars with your ripped jeans and his torn jacket: you know that he wants you in that same desperate way. After this, you hope that he can taste it: your desperation. You yearn him to know how much it is that you want him. He rests his forehead against your chest and your fingers thread through the back of his hair.

          “Is this wrong?”, you whisper and you feel him shudder in your hands at this.

          He hesitates as if to find the right words that aren’t there. “No,” he replies in a mellow tone, “Why would it be wrong?”

          You push him away just a little so that he can face you, and he pulls his face up to yours. “Then why do we have to hide?”, you ask and his thumb trails along the edge of your jaw. “If it isn’t so wrong, then why do we have to hide?”, but he waits a moment, his touch pads over your lips, presses into the corner of your lips.

          He whispers it even though nobody can hear you both: “ _Porque é assim que é_ ,” and then he kisses you again. _Because that is how it is_ , he says. You will whisper this under your breath for a long time afterwards and into old age: _because that is how it is_.

          His name falls out next, “Carlos…” And he has too many nicknames too because you’re the only person to call him that.

          “Emerson…”

          You’re the best racer you know. You’ve been racing for a year and your brother has stopped making you fix up his karts because you have your own now. He hasn’t said it yet because maybe he doesn’t want to inflame any ego you may have: but you are the best racer that you know at only fifteen. It fills you with just a glimmer of pride, doesn’t it? _Pai_ always said modesty was your best quality, and this is true, but you also think that it is boring that of everything in the world you could be: you are best at being modest. Sometimes you help Wilson with the deliveries he does at his day job. It’s a dusty building with a back room and Wilson sends both you are Carlos to help him dump the boxes into the back of the truck. You get just a little greedy then, so you kiss Carlos by tipping his chin up. He drops what he is doing and places his hands on your shoulders. The both of you don’t hear the footsteps behind you until they end right at the doorway. You leap away and Wilson is standing there, staring at you with a lost expression on his face. A sense of panic seizes you but you cannot step back because Carlos latches a hand onto your upper arm.

          “ _Tigrao_ ,” you hail but his eyes flicker to the ground at your feet. “ _Isto não é o que parece_ ,” you try to explain by approaching him.

          Wilson balks slightly and angles away from you to grab the next box. “ _Você está quase pronto?_ ”, he asks quietly, clearing his throat. You look to Carlos and he passes you a confused look.

          “Wilson--”

          He doesn’t respond, he picks up a second box and strolls right out of the door as if he was never even there at all. “ _Eu sinto muito_ ,” you sit down on one of the shelves and bury your face into your face. Carlos always has a way of reassuring you, he slides a hand over your shoulder and stands beside you.

          “ _Olhe para mim_ ,” he commands and you look up as he wanted, peering through your fingertips. “ _Está bem_ ,” he beams reassuringly, but it is weak and he squeezes your shoulder before walking out through the doorway the way that he’d come. You observe him leaving and you never thought about it before: how dangerous this really is between you two. Wilson doesn’t say a word, he examines you through the rear-view mirror on the roof as you sit in the backseat. The ride is more silent than the dead of night and the atmosphere tense. That evening you are just about to climb out your window when Wilson enters your room and sits on the edge of your bed.

          “Sneaking out?”, he asks and you hesitate before sitting down next to him. You stay silent but hang your head guiltily. He pinches your chin and brings it your face to his, your lower lip quivers. You fear what he is going to do next. “ _Seja cuidadoso_ ,” his eyes are wide. _Be careful_. You swallow and nod your head slowly--you know in that moment what exactly he is talking about. He leaves, shutting the door quietly behind him.

          “I think my brother knows,” you admit to Carlos. He doesn’t appear altered or shocked in any way. He tucks a lock of hair behind your ear and hums pleasantly. You notice that his eyes are a little hardened around the edge but you do not say a word of it to him.

          The Friday of your seventeenth birthday, Wilson begs you to cut school but you refuse. In the evening you find yourself in the back of his car with Luiz in the front seat and Carlos sitting cramed next to you. It’s a three story house with the lights completely shut off in front of the lake and the music pounding on the street that is packed in the brim with strangers, Luiz fixes you a beer and then disappears. Carlos wheels you by your upper arm and the both of you settle into a corner of the room away from the crowds. The lake is completely still, mini ripples occasionally billow out from the people naked at the edge of the water. The bass of the music is in your throat and you swallow your drink with a relaxed but tense smile. Wilson disappears soon after with a girl under his arm, passing you a wink before heading upstairs.

          You only shake your head and by the time you’ve had your second beer, your head is beginning to swim. Carlos chortles, he jumps to his feet and grabs you by your hand, leading you towards the speaker in a wide room. You can’t taste the alcohol on him, or smell it, but you can tell he has had too much to drink because he has a childish smile on his face and he cannot stop laughing. Over what exactly? You don’t really know. His hands moves to the hollow of your waist, his fingers press into your skin as he tugs you closer and closer. But his hands make you feel like something he has been dying to read. The music isn’t loud enough (too much so actually) because you can hear the quickened pace of his breaths as they tremble towards you in the darkness. His lips brush your ear and you still for a moment.

          “ _Eu quero você_ ,” _I want you_.

          His hand is on your wrist, so hard that it pinches off the nerves. The trip up the stairs is blurry but you remember that blood is pounding in your ears and everything you hear has a fuzzy texture to it. A long, shadowed hallway and there is only one room at the very end that is partially obscure that is open. It’s a cramped, empty, carpeted room with one window that allows a long beam of moonlight to seep in through the glass. As soon as the door shuts, your back is to it and his hands are practically screaming to touch you. It feels like a cathedral, almost holy the way that his lips travel along your neck and your fingers tug the hem of his shirt over his head. He presses against you and leads your hand to his thighs as if begging for your embrace. And yes, his mouth feels just as heaven should and his kisses like stars falling over him. You twist your hands into the back of his head to urge him forward but for the short moment that your eyes open and he rips down your jeans you truly understand passion for the first time.

          He’s over you, on the floor, a hand on either side of your shoulders. But his eyes are on you, on every movement of yours when he eventually pushes into you as if he is wondering, _is this okay_ , but he can’t bring the words up from his chest. So you grab him, you bury your nails into the flesh of his back. You feel it, everything at once; his moans as they trickle over your skin and every thrust of his that is full of intention. You can’t help but think that this, all this, will one day be your downfall. Because you have the tendency to feel things too deeply for your own good. It is both a blessing and a curse, isn’t it? You can lay there are run the pads of your fingers over his freckles, the spots of skyline on his skin and you know that all of this is yours. He doesn’t say anything but your name, your name alone:

          “Emerson… Emerson… Emerson.”

          You do the same because you search and search for something, any word to describe exactly how you are feeling, how much that you care about him. But you can’t find it, anything in that occasion. For now, it’ll be his name, his name forever on your lips.

          “Carlos.”

          That alone is enough to shelter you both in a storm. You wonder what else you could possibly need in the world but this.

          Less than twenty minutes later you’re dressed and sitting up on the carpet tying up your boots. It’s past one in the morning now and Carlos doesn’t say anything to you. When you look to him he passes you a shy smile as he buttons up his shirt. His hand brushes the small of your back as you exit the room. It’s something you cannot forget: how it felt that first time and everytime after to have his hands on you. Luiz is arched by the car with his foot propped up and Wilson is already in the front seat as you climb in.

          “ _Onde vocês estavam?_ ”, Wilson asks and he is pressing his fingers into his temples.

          Carlos shrugs, “ _Lugar algum_.” _Nowhere_. But the tips of his fingers scrape towards yours as you rest your forehead against the glass and it causes a sleepy smile to meet your lips. At home, Wilson rips off his shoes and his eyes follow you around the room as if he is attempting to comprehend you. So he interrogates you again: _where were you?_

          You freeze in place and you’ve never been good at lying. “ _Andar de cima_ ,” upstairs, you tell him quietly. It is just past dawn, seven in the morning when you rise out of bed and he’s standing outside of your bedroom door as if he was waiting for you.

          “ _Com quem?_ ”, he demands and his voice has a seriousness to it that you’ve never heard in your life. Your mouth opens and then closes again. He reaches for your shoulders, shakes you, “ _Com quem?!_ ”, he utters with far more urgency. But his eyes flinch with something as he studies you, as if he doesn’t want to admit the truth. He leaves you there, rushes down the stairs as you call to him, try to stop him. You sit on the porch waiting for hours for him to come home and when his truck pulls up into the driveway, you stand up. He is staggering, you notice, and as he rushes past you, you witness that his knuckles are bleeding and his lip is cut.

          You spend the rest of the afternoon with Carlos and a bucket of warm water in between your knees. He continues to spit blood into the grass beside you with little swears tumbling out of him every few minutes. He grimaces under your fingertips as you clean him, dressing up the scrapes on his knuckles. But you never ask him what happened and neither does he tell you. You have this understanding, the both of you, and there is not always a need for useless sentences. He does say one thing and his teeth are crimson, eyes tight with pain:

          “ _Eu estou bem_ ,” he bumps your foot with his, “Don’t worry about me, Emerson.”

          Wilson’s words ring in your ears: _be careful_.

          Your brother is in your room when you return back. He has his chin in the palm of his hand and is staring at the wall. He has cleaned his face up but he leaves the wounds open. “Remember when you flipped the hydrofoil?”, he sighs and his hair is hanging in his face.

          You sit cautiously next to him, but not because you are afraid of him. “Yes,” you swallow, “ _eu lembro_.”

          “What about the promise that we made?”, he sits up and glares to you.

          You meet his eyes, “That we’d never race them again because we almost died.”

          He nods and then touches his hand lightly to your knee. “Can you promise me something else?”, his eyes scope over you, hoping to find something.

          “ _O que_ ”

          “Stay away from him,” he says seriously.

          “ _Tigrao_ \--”

          “I wouldn’t be able to live,” he pans his gaze away and his voice hitches, “If something happened to you.”

          “ _Eu não posso fazer isso_ ,” you scoop the hair out of your eyes because it’s the truth: you couldn’t if you were to try.

          He catches your wrist before you leave the room, pulls you back and because he is your brother you listen to him as you always have. “ _Por favor_ ,” he squeezes your hand, “Try. For me.”

          You don’t forget about Carlos--but thinking about him every day is not the hardest part. The most difficult part is having to see him every day. He has that pretty new girlfriend of hers under under his arm but his eyes only linger on you. You beat him in every race that you’re in and manage to get your own apartment by the time you are eighteen. It comes to your mind often, when the moonlight pierces itself over your bed and you imagine, you you remember it: the way that that same glow slid over his hair, how it felt between your fingers and the warmth of his skin against yours. You can’t help yourself, you slip a hand beneath the sheets and past the hem of your shorts. You are nineteen when the two of you begin to talk again, casual talk with sweat glistening on your necks just as it was when you two were children. You inquire about things you don’t care about:

          “How’s your girlfriend?”

          “We broke up.”

          “Oh.”

          Carlos rubs the toe of his shoe in the dirt, “Are you racing in Formula Vee next year?”

          “Yes,” you fold your back to him. Your brother waves to you across the lot, “Wilson and I both.” You leave him there and it rattles you: imagining that girl’s hips in Carlos’s hands, her tiny breasts pressed to his chest and the backboard slamming into the wall. You shake this from your head with a wrinkle of your nose and remember that night over two years ago. Do you remember how infinite everything felt then? “Carlos!”, you return and shout to him. He seems startled by your voice but stares to you across the dust. Everything seems trapped in your throat then and you blurt it out, “Do you want to get a drink sometime?”

          He smiles, “ _Tudo bem_ , Emerson.”

          The both of you sit three days later on the hood of your car and the sunset is pooling itself in the heavens. The colors mingle on his cheeks and you have a beer in your hand that you don’t intend on drinking. You laugh as if there has been no time passage at all, you are still fourteen on the top of that building with the soles of your shoes red with brick dust and planets glimmering bright. Wilson notices the two of you are speaking again but he doesn’t say anything to you. You notice that Carlos has a tiny, ivory scar on his knuckle from that day. The next time that you meet, he conjures up enough courage to grab for your hand and lace his fingers into yours. For a moment you sit and stare, wiggle your hand around in his before gaping him in the eyes and raising his knuckles to your mouth. You press your lips to that scar, gently so very gently as if you’d never done it in the first place.

          By the time you are twenty-one, you are Formula Vee champion. You’ve known Carlos long enough that your eyes and his have their own language. Words that are never spoken, perhaps that don’t even exist in the first place. All the world is lost in the sleepy hours of dawn where you’re in his bed; everything except for the lyrics in both your eyes. But he never touches you, and it’s not because he is afraid. Like the first time: he simply wishes for it to mean something. He only lets you into his arms and holds you for the rest of the night. His head is on your chest, his breath slows to match yours and you adjust your heartbeat to his. But you never sleep with him because he has a new girlfriend and so do you.

          The second time that you sleep with someone, you’re twenty-two and you’re in the back seat of your car when you slip a hand underneath her skirt. That’s just it, she is so soft and you miss the way the calloused hands once on your shoulders. You’re struggling for breath and her hair is just too silky in between your fingers. You drop her off at home and she presses a kiss to your cheek, her scent lingers in the car longer than you would like. You decide it one day:

          “ _Eu vou para a Europa_ ,” and Carlos doesn’t looks surprised when you tell him the life-changing news.

          He grins and tugs you into the crook of his arm, “Do you think I will be able to join you soon?”

          You press a kiss to the undercut of his jaw but do not smile yourself. You will be leaving everything behind: your parents, your brother, Carlos, everything for racing. But it is not a tough decision. You manage to rent away your apartment and move everything of yours into Wilson’s garage. When Carlos hears that you don’t have a place to stay for two weeks, he offers you his couch and you take it graciously. The night before you leave, he is sitting parallel to you with his legs in your lap. He reaches over, plucks the book you're reading out of your hands and begins to kiss you. You push him to the edge of the couch, catch his wrists in yours and his eyes are brimming with something you could only classify as desire. You join Carlos in the shower and your hands are shaking as you step in. He seems taken back for a moment but it starts there: that night begins in that shower. It ends in the bed.

          He feels so tiny in your hands, you’ve grown over these years, you’re taller than he is. But it’s only that second time that he touches you and you think: _why didn’t we start this sooner? Years sooner?_ But your hands are dancing on his skin and his thoughts are sweet echoes in the shadows. A necklace stringed with syllables, wrapped in a duvet of promise. You press into him, hold him steady and your tense shoulders soften with ease. He caresses you with haikus and trails of his fingertips on your back are poems. He laces your hands above his head like apostrophes and the sounds he makes as you are above him are like commas waiting for more. It’s the ink of his skin that writes to you the greater things, leaves scrawl and etching of memories over you. So you murmur to him:

          “ _Me diga uma coisa linda_ ,” tell me something beautiful.

          And he does, he locks your eyes and whispers to you, and you alone: “Emerson.”

          You slow, your thumb brushes carefully over his jaw, you can sense his breath and you hear his voice from when you were children muttering: _what are you waiting for?_ So you don’t wait this time, you don’t hesitate like the both of you have been all these years: “Carlos.”

          You awake at five in the morning, it is still somber outside and Carlos is tangled in your arms. You slip him out of your grasp, slide to the floor and dress yourself. It is done deliberately so, that slowness with which you pull your clothes on your body. He whimpers some in his sleep as he wakes from a dream but quickly falls back onto the pillow. You stand by the doorway observing him for a moment and the pale sunlight casts itself over his skin. He didn’t just wear it, the sunlight, to you he was it. You linger just a little longer there, watching him before turning to grab your bag. You know it then, so you whisper it before you shut the door as if by some miracle that he’d ever hear you:

          “ _Ti amo_ ,” because Italian was your language wasn’t it? To him. That first one before you found you didn’t need words.

          You shut the door behind you and climb down the stairs to the street. Wilson puts your bags in the back of his car and you hop into the front seat. You don’t look up because you are too afraid to see the expression of Carlos as he sees you drive away from the upstairs window. Your head rests against the glass of the passenger side and Wilson keeps examining you from the corner of his eye.

          “Did you say goodbye?”, he asks.

          “ _Nao_ ,” you breath softly. It would be too much for you, to have to say goodbye.

          “ _Você está bem?_ ”, he questions. You shiver and curl your feet up underneath you like a small child. Your eyes shut and you can feel them brimming with tears under your lids. He looks to your again, then back to the road, then back to you again. You sigh, a hitch in your breath. He reaches over and slides a hand over your knee, “ _Rato_?” But you can’t talk, you can only swallow dryly as a tear moves underneath your chin. “ _Você sentirá falta dele_ ,” you’ll miss him, he notes it deliberately and then his hand shifts to your shoulder, rubs your skin reassuringly.

          Your breath is shaking, “ _Eu sempre faço_.” You always do, you always miss him. You miss the summer heat and the revine; the rooftop and the stars; how grand and large everything felt as his fingertips pointed out the galaxy, reaching for the stars with his touch. If you could go back to that tiny room, the one on your seventeenth birthday with the music that pounded through the floorboards--you would do it in the blink of an eye without hesitation or regret. The car stammers to a halt at the airport parking lot and you both sit there in silence when he shuts off the engine. Neither of you move a muscle.

          He says it eventually. “ _Você ama ele, não é?_ ”, you love him, don’t you? That’s what he says. You meet his eyes, remove your hand from your own and you know your face is scarlet.

          “Always.”

          Wilson rests his head against the steering wheel, “I’m sorry, _Rato_.”

          You wipe your nose on your sleeve, “Why?”

          “For treating you like you were different.”

          In the airport, you leave Wilson with you luggage and head into the bathroom. You only pace there, washing your hands over and over, staring at your reflection in the mirror. _You can do this,_ you think to yourself. Your stomach is churning, burning with nerves. The heels of your hands dig into the sink and you allow your hair to fall into your eyes. Wilson is waiting for you, he gives you a hug as you hold your plane ticket in your hand.

          Your chin hooks over his shoulder. “You were only trying to protect me,” you murmur into his ear.

          The both of you pull away and he gives you a sweet smile, one that only a protective brother could give. As though everything had been working to this moment and he is saying: _I am so proud of you,_ _crianca_. You’ve always liked planes, but you’ve never been in one in your entire life. You have seen them lots of times before, Wilson and yourself used to sneak through the hole in the chain link fence and watch the planes land. It fills you will a hint of dreadful excitement. You’re exhausted, more than you have been in several years, as though you haven’t seen a bed in years. So you sigh, rest your head on the window and raise a fingertip to stroke the dots of early morning sunshine that pool there. They are like little freckles, almost as the ones that splash Carlos’s shoulders. You recall that morning, sitting for an hour before you left and watching him sleep. His eyelids were flickering and you wondered: _darling, just what are you dreaming of?_ Your hands reached for him, tugged the blanket closer to his neck and memorized the contours of his spine. It was the sound, that bloody sound, the one of his sleepy breaths leaving his delicate lungs.

          You fall asleep to the memory of this; that alone was enough to vanquish any of your fears.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed :) I love comments very much so, and I read and respond to every single one. My Tumblr is @pieregasly
> 
> TRANSLATIONS:  
> O que você quer? = What do you want?  
> Rato, isso é Carlos = Mouse, this is Carlos  
> Prazer em conhecê-lo = Nice to meet you  
> Ele sabe Italiano, só um pouco de português = He knows Italian, just a little bit of Portuguese.  
> Tigrao = Tiger  
> Venha ca! = Come here!  
> Isto não é o que parece = This is not what it looks like  
> Você está quase pronto? = Are you almost ready?  
> Eu sinto muito = I'm so sorry  
> Olhe para mim = Look at me  
> Está bem = It's alright  
> Onde você estava dois? = Where were you two?  
> Com quem? = With who?  
> Eu estou bem = I am fine  
> Eu lembro = I remember  
> O que? = What?  
> Eu não posso fazer isso = I can't do it  
> Por favor = Please  
> Tudo bem = Alright  
> Eu vou para a Europa = I am going to Europe  
> Nao = No  
> Você está bem? = Are you okay?  
> Você sentirá falta dele = You'll miss him  
> Eu sempre faço = I always do  
> Você ama ele, não é? = You love him, don't you?  
> Crianca = Child


End file.
